


Not Like This

by texadian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Sherlock Being an Idiot, well just a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texadian/pseuds/texadian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has finally decided to go for a relationship with Molly. If only he'd ask her for a date instead of more body parts to experiment on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Like This

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a post from collapsingnebulae on Tumblr. 
> 
> Thank you just-mindy for looking over my story before posting.

“Hey, Sherlock. I just popped by to-” John stopped mid sentence, taking the time to look around. “What in god’s name are you trying to do here?” he called out into the dauntingly quiet flat.

There was no answer, just the eerie presence of various coolers scattered around the kitchen and lounge like a scene out of a thriller film.

“Sherlock!” he yelled.

Still no answer.

“I don’t have time for this,” the doctor muttered to himself, before lumbering around the flat in search of his best friend.

He’d checked the bedroom, bathroom, and even his old room upstairs, when he heard an odd plopping sound coming from behind the kitchen counter. He saw Sherlock’s feet first, spread out in front of him, while his upper half leaned up against the freezer door.  An unidentifiable clear bag of brown mush sat beside him with one finger poking into the side of it.

“What’s this?” John motioned to the kitchen where the majority of the coolers labeled _Barts_ sat untouched.  

“A liver,” Sherlock replied with a mopy pout. “It fell from the counter when I shut the fridge door.”  
John stepped back, took in a deep calming breath, and with a single finger held in front of him, clarified, “Not the small organ beside you, Sherlock. I am, without a doubt, referring to the dozen or so coolers you seem to be collecting now!”

The man sneered, raising his upper lip in indignation, and groaned in reply.

“Well, what is this?”

“Failure.”

John frowned in confusion.

“Failure, John. This is proof of my shortcomings.” The detective hopped to his feet, with new found energy. “This is proof that Mycroft was right.” He made a look of disgust at this, cringing like he’d smelled a carton of sour milk. “I can’t do _this_.”

“That you cannot what, exactly?”

“I can’t be you. I can’t be Molly. I sure as hell can’t be Lestrade”

John patted Sherlock on the back. “We never said we wanted you to, mate. But how does that equate to 16 Barts coolers scattered about your flat? Did you steal these?”

“No. Molly gave them to me.”

“Oh.” John tapped his index finger against the counter. “Then these are all body parts then?”

“Yes.” Sherlock nodded.

“And she wants you to... reconstruct a whole human body with them? She does realize you’re no Dr. Frankenstein, right?” he chuckled.

Sherlock blinked. “I don’t know who you’re referring to. You know I don’t really keep tabs on Bart’s employees.”

John looked down, shaking head. “No, no you don’t. ‘Cept Molly, maybe.”

“She’s different.”

“Course she is.” John smiled knowingly. “So why’d she give you 16 coolers full of body parts?”

“I asked,” he replied, like it was the only obvious answer.

John hummed. “And you’re just going to leave them on the floor?” A pause. “Has Mrs. Hudson seen this yet?”

“No,” Sherlock drawled. “I told her it smelled awful in here three days ago and she hasn’t been up since.”

“Mm. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

The two friends shared an amused grin, before Sherlock shuffled over to a blue cooler occupying John’s chair and picked it up in curiosity. After taking a quick peek inside, he dropped it back onto the cushion and walked over to his own chair to fall back on.

“Toes?” John tilted his head.

“Close. Two thumbs. From the same owner I believe.”

“Why’d you ask for that?” John moved the cooler to the floor beside his chair, carefully, and sat down.

“It seemed genuine.”

The two sat in silence for almost five minutes, before John stood, mobile in hand.

“If you’re not going to tell me what’s really going on here, I need to step out and call Mary.”

Sherlock sighed, exasperated. “Fine. It all started with two tickets to a show at Trafalgar Studios.”

“A client’s payment?” John asked.

“Naturally,” he replied.

  


**1 Liver**

 

“Why didn’t you call me?” Sherlock asked the DI, following along beside him. The two men had arrived at Barts just a short time ago —one from his flat on Baker St. and the other from the latest crime scene.

“I tried to tell you over the phone, but you hung up.”  
“You said the case was a five. Of course I hung up.”

Lestrade threw his hands up in frustration. “Then why are you here now?”

“Molly.”

“Molly?”

Sherlock ran his fingers over the pair of show tickets within the confines of his coat pocket and nodded. “She, uh. She told me it was at least a 7.”

Sherlock pushed through the lab doors with Lestrade trailing behind.

“She called you about the case?” he asked, skeptical.

“Mm,” Sherlock replied with an indecisive hum.

Lestrade didn’t have time to question him further, for the subject at hand had just stepped out of her office.

“Sorry boys, ‘fraid the body’s not in yet. I’d suggest coming back-” She looked up to the wall clock. “-after lunch.”

Lestrade agreed with a turn on his heel, but Sherlock wasn’t so deterred.

“Did you need something else?” Molly asked him. She had already begun to return to her office, laptop open and knee deep in paperwork. His timing couldn’t be better.  
“Yes. I, uh, meant to ask you something.”

“Yeah?” She rested a hand on her hip, slouching to one side, and messed with her lab coat sleeve with the other.

“Mhm.” Sherlock stood unwavering, but didn’t go on.

Molly smiled with a tilted head. “So? What’d you need?” She shifted her weight from one side to the other and crossed her arms in front of her.

For some reason, the simplest of questions, the simplest of words, just wouldn’t leave his vocal chords. He didn’t need anything. This wasn’t a life or death situation. He wanted - or at least hoped this sudden urge was what most people would associate as a want - was to ask her out to a play.

“Nothing,” he choked out, his voice almost cracking on the second syllable.

“Oh, ok.” She stood there puzzled. “Well if you remember, I’ll just be in my office.” She pointed past the stainless steel door. “New procedures for the whole department. Fun stuff,” she finished meekly.

“Wait!”

Molly froze mid-step and back tracked, before spinning around to face him.   
“I did need something —wanted something.”

She raised her brows in anticipation. “Which would be?”

The tickets in Sherlock’s pocket didn’t budge. He could have sworn their pointy edges had made divots in the cotton material, refusing to move anywhere but down.

Sherlock bit the inside of his lip. “I was wondering if you… could get me a liver.”

Molly scratched her chin in thought, before walking over to cold storage. Sherlock took this time to look down in self-hatred and crumpled the tickets from his pocket into a mangled ball.

“Look’s like I have one, actually. 75 year old man. Does that work?” she asked, upon returning a couple minutes later.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, less than enthralled.

She passed him the cooler and he took it with his free hand, the one still not buried deep in his coat.

“That it?”  

“Yeah. That’s all I wanted.” He held up the small cooler, looking down on it in disgust as if he’d caught a rat, run loose in his flat.

She said goodbye with a slight nod of her head and closed the door to her office behind her. He didn’t leave at first, watching through the blinds of her office window as she bustled about. Dejected, he finally decided that this morning had been a loss and he would take it as so, leaving with his dignity. He even made sure to toss his tickets in the bin on the way out, avoiding any more urges to follow these misguided wants.

 

**2 Kidneys**

 

His plan had seemed easy, maybe even elegant. He’d come in near the end of her shift, comment on how he hadn’t eaten in a while, and let it go from there. He should have learned from the last attempt though, that asking Molly out never went as planned.

“Where’s John?” she asked him as he entered through the double doors.

“Busy. I wanted to see how the autopsy was going on Lestrade’s latest Jane Doe.” He tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Have you determined cause of death yet?”

Molly paused, suspending a colon in mid air as she peered into the gastrointestinal cavity of the… _man_ on the table.

“This guy here isn’t actually for any of the Yard’s cases.”

“No?” Sherlock hovered over the table, looking to see what had Molly’s eyes glued to the deceased man’s gut.

“Don’t even bother,” she said, waving him off. “No murder here. No foul play. He died from an allergic reaction to shellfish.” She turned to a small cart on wheels behind her and held up a bowl. “See. Stomach contents confirm it.”

“Oh,” the detective huffed. He backed away from the table, and fidgeted with his hands.

He had no further reason to be there, so unless he said something relevant now—

“I really haven’t eaten in a while, actually.” He held one hand over his stomach.

Molly eyed him warily, with an unpleasant glower across her face. Sherlock hadn’t realized what was so wrong about his statement, until his landed on the cadaver’s stomach contents inside the bowl.

“I...-” he began, refusing to stutter. “-mention that, because I really should get going if there’s no case here and…” He was going to give up again. He couldn’t believe himself. “And I was wondering if after you finished with the autopsy-”

“Yeah?” She set down the bowl and leaned over the table —her eyes on him rather than the body below her this time.

“-you’d be able to get,” he stalled, “a couple kidneys for me?”

“What?” she stood up straight, banging her head on one of the large angled lights above her.

“Two kidneys. Maybe even two with stage 1 cancer.” He face palmed, mentally, and kicked the leg of a stool with his foot.  

She, thankfully, had already turned away in search of his requested body parts and failed to notice the cringe on his face from the sudden acute pain in his big toe.

After five minutes, she returned to the morgue with two coolers in tow and a rather tired and dejected look upon her face.

“There’s two here. Only one of them has-”

“They’ll do fine,” Sherlock interjected, snatching the small _Barts_ coolers from her hands. “Goodnight.”

He fled from the room in a jiffy, not able to stand the effects of his idiocy any longer.

 

**A Pair of Thumbs**

 

The following morning, Molly arrived at work to see the consulting detective lounging quietly in her office chair. His feet were propped up next to a stack of forms on her desk and one of his arms was supporting his head, leaning dangerously to the side as if he might topple over completely.

“Sherlock?”

The man bolted upright causing the springs in the old chair to cry out in protest. He looked around, dazed, before his eyes landed on her.

“Molly.” He held his hands out in front of him as if directing an aeroplane to its gate. “Molly-”

“That is my name, Sherlock. Everything all right?”

He looked down to his hands, then back at her. What was he here for again? What was his plan this time? Oh, right; he didn’t have a plan. His neighbours in the flat next door had chosen 4:00 am to be the perfect time for a row. With little hope of returning to sleep, Sherlock had marched his restless body down to Barts to plan his next attempt. Only, he hadn’t expected Molly’s dingy office chair to provide just the right amount of comfort to fall asleep in.  

“I needed you,” he twiddled his fingers, wondering if just stopping there would suffice.

The prevalent look of concern and fright upon her face told him otherwise.

“To get me a pair of thumbs,” he found himself saying.

Her eyes darted from his own fingers and back to his face.

“Thumbs…” Her nose scrunched up in that adorable way it did when she was particularly thrown and her lips curled in on themselves. “What do you need thumbs for?”

His eyes carried past her to the clock hanging against the far wall: 5:52. “Bored.”

“I just gave you a liver and two kidneys yesterday.”

“I’m, uh, waiting back for some results on them.”

Her lips opened up into an o. “What are you testing for this time?”

_Shite._ “Exposure.” _Exposure…?_

He thought back to the day before; the three _Barts_ coolers sitting atop his kitchen table.

“Well I’ll go check on those thumbs for you.” She turned her upper body towards the door. “A pair of thumbs?” she clarified, glancing back. “Same body then?”

Sherlock half nodded, the corners of his lips dropping into the shape of an upside down U.

“One moment then.”  

She popped out of the lab, disappearing with a swoosh of her white lab coat flowing behind her. He supposed for a moment, that he was indeed not the only one that could make a notable exit.

 

**Two Eyes**

 

After stopping by Baker Street for a short and unproductive nap, Sherlock found himself back out, aimlessly wandering the streets near Barts. Standing on the doorstep earlier, the detective could have sworn his return to the area was all thanks to a dodgy dry cleaners near by. But now, hiding under an awning across the street from the hospital, he realized his true and only intention was her.

The lab was bustling with grad students and the morgue was empty, give or take a couple dozen cadavers tucked away. For an instant, Sherlock pictured Molly out to lunch with a dull, boring, doctor type that would have her googly eyed over his fancy job and title. But then that nasty voice in his head that sounded a lot like his brother, shushed for once, and all at once, he knew where she’d be.

It was her plaited hair that gave Molly away, swaying back and forth as she carried her lunch over to her secluded bench across from the pathology wing.

“Hey,” he shouted, hoping his height would help his voice carry over the heads of the others passing between them.

At least six or seven other people turned to face him instead. A few patients walking his way eyed him suspiciously, while a short woman with a _Barts_ ID hanging from her dress waved back with a hint of skepticism —almost knowing his call had not been directed at her. Finally a break in the crowd revealed the pathologist, eyebrows raised with a slight dip of her head.

“You.” He pointed in her direction with his index finger.

“Me?” She hesitated, holding her cafeteria lunch in one hand and pointing to herself with the other.

“Yes,” he stated, matter-of-factly.

“ _I_ am about to eat lunch, Sherlock,” she emphasized. “What are _you_ doing?”

He supposed for a moment that tracking her down just hours after he’d waited for her at the lab, was a bit out of character. But as people said time and time again: he was a mystery. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to stray from the norm?

“I...I-” he paused. _Great, now you truly are stuttering._

“You what?” She pointed his way this time, holding back a grin.

“I…” His finger rose up from his chest to his face. “An eye. I wanted an eye.”

“Right now?” She made a big show of it, holding up her lunch.

“After.”

“Just one eye this time?”

“Eh, let’s make it two,” he replied, adding his middle finger to the one already held up in front of him. “Dropped the last one in a cup of coffee.”

She laughed to herself, not stopping to care whether or not he found it intriguing as well, but agreed anyway. “Let me eat first, and I’ll have it ready by 1:00.”

“Great,” he mumbled sarcastically to himself.

 

**1 Foot, a Gallbladder Sample, Patellar Cartilage, and 2 Lobes from a Left Lung - Non-smoker**

 

Over the next forty eight hours, Sherlock visited Molly at work three more times. His kitchen was growing quite the selection of fine organ coolers. He’d even categorized them by model. The darker blues were older with a taller handle, while the newer ones were smaller and light blue. He pictured a storage room in Barts piled high full of them. Or maybe perhaps it was all Stamford’s doing, sending out an order every year just for him.

The night before, he’d come in with a flyer for a bar near her place to ask her out. She’d berated him for even thinking about conducting social experiments on drunk bar hoppers and practically forced upon him a whole foot to do what he liked with.

This afternoon though, history would be on his side. He’d been timid and unlike himself lately. His advances and inviting gazes had flown right over his pathologist’s head and out the window.

It wasn’t hard to find something to compliment her on. He arrived that day to find her flitting about the lab, leading students in multiple methods of flow cytometry. She’d ditched her usual baggy trousers and heavy floral button up and jumper for a more professional, nay professor type, look.

“All you’re missing is the glasses, today, Dr. Hooper,” he said, catching her off guard as she finished helping a student with data analysis.

She glanced back at him, not entirely surprised. “Huh?”

He tried again. “You’re looking very sharp today. New clothes?”

She raised one shoulder and surveyed her outfit. “I don’t think so.” With a look of indifference, her shoulder dropped and she returned her attention to the student.  

Sherlock scowled, disconcerted with this strange, new disregard of his charm.

Instead of following her around the lab like a lost puppy, Sherlock waited at the doors for her to come around again.

“I think blue really suits you,” he hinted.

She didn’t respond, didn’t even change her facial expression. _Did she not hear me?_  He caught a whiff of her vanilla perfume, mixed in with soap and fabric softener, as she breezed by.

Sherlock undid his coat then, and slung it over the back of a stool. He’d physically block her path if it came down to it.

“Molly, he called out, as she made her next turn around the counter.

He stepped into the narrow aisle, making sure to arch his back as much as possible —shirt buttons strained to the max. His hand, palm down, rested against the cold blacktop surface, supporting part of his weight.

“Talk to Stamford, Sherlock.” She pushed at his arm to move past him.

He wouldn’t budge.

“Why would I go to Stamford for this?”

She took a moment, watching him, _deducing_ him —if he had to put a word to it.

“Fine, come with me.” She grabbed his shirt sleeve closest to her and pulled him down the far row to the back of the lab.

They were headed to a door in the corner: a closet. _What was she insinuating?_ Her other hand, not currently grasping him by the arm, turned the knob of the door and pushed inward. The small room was dark and windowless. She led him in a few feet before letting go of his arm and spinning around on the front of her heels to face him.

What little light had managed to seep through the gaps between their bodies and the door frame, caught sharp edges on her face. She was leaning towards him, one arm extended.

_Was this a hug or a kiss?_ She leaned forward, mere inches from him. _Hug or kiss?_  He panicked and grabbed hold of her waist, eyes unable to meet hers. His fingers outlined the ridge between her teal blouse and high-waisted skirt while his palms cemented her in place.

Just then, the lights flickered on, revealing a particularly flummoxed Molly before him, mouth ajar. Her left arm, still extended, moved away from the light switch behind him, and down to her side.

“Sherlock?” Her countenance had changed. This was indeed worry.

“I’m fine,” he spoke up in a gruff voice.

He lowered his arms away from her and for the first time, took notice of a large and peculiar white door at the end of the closet.

“Right.” She didn’t believe him; not for a second. It was written in the way her eyes bore deep into his. It was as if she’d broken into his mind palace, rummaged around until she’d found what she needed, then left without a trail of evidence.

“Cold storage is just through here. Find what you need and come get me after. I really don’t have time for this; I’m in the middle of a lab.” She pushed hard on the large white door and it swung open into what he would describe as a walk in fridge.

He stared in, not impressed. He was neither interested in entering a room just above 0 degrees Celsius, nor collecting a body part he had no intentions of experimenting on.

“Thanks.”

His gratitude was far from genuine, but it seemed to satisfy Molly. She left quietly back through the closet door —the steady buzz from her students drowning out the distanced clicking of her heels.

Sherlock  took a glimpse into the cold storage room and gritted his teeth, wishing he hadn’t left his coat back in the lab.

  


**The Duodenum and Jejunum of a Small Intestine**

 

_Need your presence at Baker St. Come on your lunch break. -SH_

 

A reply pinged in less than a minute later.

 

_Why? -MH_

 

Sherlock flopped down in his chair. Why? Because I want to ask you on a date without distractions! He swiped his phone open, staring down at the screen. He wasn’t always up to date with social norms, but he was fairly certain you didn’t ask people out over text messaging.

 

_I need a small intestine. -SH_

 

He hit send, before he could rethink it. John always lectured him about lying, but this wasn’t a lie. He really could use a small intestine for gut microbial experiments. Who was to say if the receiving of said organ would spark an invitation to dinner?

 

For the next half hour or so, he fiddled around the flat going from one brief activity to the next. He picked up the books still littered across his coffee table from an old case, carried all the coolers into the kitchen, and even removed his suit jacket, laying it over the back of the couch.

Every five minutes or so, he’d stare down at the street below from his window, but there was no sign of her yet. He considered calling her on more than one occasion, but held back. The last thing he needed was for her to come barrelling through flat, short tempered.

Finally, after another ten minutes of waiting patiently, as he so detested, he retrieved his mobile from its perch on the mantle. There were no calls, no messages —nothing. He stared down at her contact info, just tempting him to touch the call button. He was seconds away from doing so, when the front door open.

“Molly.” He didn’t turn at first, just listened for her padded footsteps.

“Oh, Sherlock. It’s just me, not that friend of yours that cuts up dead people,” Mrs. Hudson replied.

“She’s not my girlfriend!” He swiveled around on the spot, fists clenched.

Mrs. Hudson shook her head with a smile. “I never said she was dear.”

Sherlock scowled and advanced upon the smaller lady. “What’s this?”

He looked down at the ever familiar cooler in her hands.

“Molly dropped this off. She seemed to be in quite a hurry.”

“Mm,” he hummed.  
“What’s in there?” She hesitated for a moment, before continuing, “Actually, I don’t want to know.”

“Best you didn’t.” Sherlock took the cooler from her hands and deposited it on a side table. “Oh, and I’d suggest staying clear of here for a few days. The fumes will be quite bad.” He grinned, close-mouthed.

His landlady tutted. “All right. Be careful though; I don’t need any ambulances showing up out front. Heaven knows this place receives enough attention as it is.”

 

**The List**

 

By 7:00 pm, a call came in from Lestrade at 221b. John was closest to Sherlock’s mobile, standing next to the device currently wedged between two couch cushions.

“You going to get that?” John asked, calling out to the man who’d been mucking about in the kitchen for several minutes now.

There wasn’t much space left in Sherlock’s fridge as it was. So after he’d successfully squeezed in the liver between two unmarked take-away containers, everything else was left abandoned, many even stacked up against the wall.

“No? Okay. I’ll get it then, please and thank you.”

Still no reply.

John shook his head and answered, “Sherlock’s phone.”

“Hi Greg… Case… Yeah, we’ll stop by… He’s busy… I’d assume so… Ok, see you in twenty.”

John turned around, nearly jumping out of his trousers when he saw Sherlock sitting against the arm of the couch, directly opposite of him.

“A case?” Sherlock asked.

John held a hand over his chest and took a deep breath. “Yes. Supposed suicide; techs think it might not be, though.”

“The techs said that?” Sherlock sneered. “So what, a 6?”

John shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Sherlock looked away and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Grab your coat.”

 

Lestrade and Anderson were already waiting outside the morgue when Sherlock and John came strolling  in. The consulting detective had an extra spring in his step, for this time he’d ask Molly out and he’d do it right. There was nothing for him to be worried about. He had a valid reason for being there and there was nothing she could say that would make him question it.

“Busy with Mary, John?” Molly asked, while Lestrade talked Sherlock through the current evidence on the case.

Sherlock couldn’t help but lose focus.

“A little. Why do you ask?”

Molly bit her lip and looked on quizzically. “It’s just, I suspected you must have been extra busy, considering all the experiments Sherlock has been running.”

“Has he really? On what?”

“John!” Sherlock interrupted, diverting his attention.

Lestrade crossed his arms, miffed at Sherlock’s sudden outburst, and waited for John to join them.

“As I was sayin’,” Lestrade continued, “The victim’s family said he’d been on antidepressants for years, but techs found no prescription bottles in the flat. Molly’s just waiting back on the results from the drug screen to see if any of them match up with his medical history.”

“That’s it?” Sherlock peered out of the corner of his eye at Molly, yanking on a stubborn glove that just wouldn’t slip off.

“Well, yeah that’s it. What else did you expect?” Lestrade replied, quite chafed.

Sherlock shook his hand in front of him. “No, no. Not the case. Molly. That’s all she’s waiting for?”

“I don’t know. What do I look like, her secretary?”

Sherlock went to speak, when Lestrade jumped in again. “Don’t answer that.” He shot a warning glance at Sherlock and went to leave, when a thought held him back. “Wait. What are you asking her for this time? Her firstborn?”

The outburst got the attention of the others in the room. They formed a lopsided circle around the two men like school kids around a fight.

Sherlock payed close attention to the extra three sets of eyes on him as he uttered a curt, “No.”

“Then what?” Lestrade demanded.

Sherlock tried to zone in on the only one that mattered here, the petite brunette beyond Lestrade’s shoulder, but he couldn’t. He felt trapped and uneasy. He’d waited this long to bring to fruition what had only taken him years to discover and a couple more to have a chance at. But it wouldn’t happen now.  

“Not like _this_!” he yelled, causing everyone around him to go silent.

“Like what?” Molly stepped forward, one gloveless hand slung around her neck while the other rested by her side.

His awareness of the room around him narrowed and he began to pick up on those subtle nuances he’d only ever witnessed when he was alone with her. The way she’d chew on her bottom lip whenever she was really focused on work or when she’d tuck her hair behind her ear out of habit, before moving it out again and taking a long steadied breath. He could picture her as a kid, chided by her mother for harmless habits she’d never really grown out of. Without even thinking about it, Anderson’s heavy breathing vanished and the tapping noise John always made with his feet, ceased. There was just her, in front of him, asking, waiting, for his answer.

“You’re here for a favour, aren’t you?” John suddenly piped up from beyond Sherlock’s walls.

He shoved it away, but it wouldn’t back down.

“That’s why you were messing around in the kitchen earlier. You’ve run out of things to experiment on.”

“Shut up, John.”

He heard a faint scoff from his best friend, before returning his focus to Molly. She’d extended her hand towards him; her gloved hand holding out… a list. _A list?_

“That’s what I have available right now.”

She waited for him to take it, arm wavering unsteadily. Sherlock complied, accepting it without really looking down at its contents.

“I can go and package whatever you need.”

He nodded, absentmindedly. Everything was a bit blurry. His mind palace was in a state of flux. He looked down at the list: a small inventory of samples and specimens in alphabetical order.

“I didn’t mean _this_ ,” he tried, holding up the slip of paper.

“I know.” She smiled up at him, but it was all wrong —a pity smile.

He felt John tug at his arm, a pull towards the doors.Then a muted _come on, man_. He went willingly as two more bodies followed behind him. Neither one was Molly.

 

**A Hand**

 

Sherlock was glad Mrs. Hudson had heeded his warning. After tearing through his mind palace, his flat had taken the physical blow  —everything overturned and strewn about. Another day had passed and despite his rather high IQ and keen ability to read people, he found the hardest person to deduce, was himself.

He wasn’t entirely finished with his brooding or self-hatred, when he heard his mobile ping.

 

_Dropped off the samples you requested for the alleged suicide case. -GL_

 

_Where? -SH_

_Really? -GL_

_On my way. -SH_

 

For once, Sherlock cursed his luck for picking up a new case. The forensic team had concluded that the drugs found in the victim’s system were never prescribed, but the dosage shouldn’t have been lethal. It was Sherlock’s idea then, that the drugs were combined with a reagent, that in most cases, would have been perfectly harmless.

The lab was empty when he arrived. His microscope had already been set up at his regular station and the samples from the victim’s house arranged in a row on a tray beside it. So someone had been by recently. His first thought was Lestrade. He was the caller, so naturally he’d have delivered the samples, but something told him otherwise. Not only was it the way his microscope was set up -cord wound in a circle with stage lowered inches below the lens- but there’d been thought put into it.

Molly.

“Pleasant afternoon, isn’t.”

Her timing was eerily spot on.

“Really? Didn’t notice.” Sherlock adjusted the light source and placed the first slide in place.

“Weren’t you just outside?” She snorted to herself, passing behind him.

Sherlock would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t examining a fine powder at the moment.

“Doesn’t matter,” she continued in a rather chipper voice.

_What has gotten into her?_

“You’ll see soon enough. It’s supposed to last till sundown.”

Sherlock hummed. The sooner he acknowledged her observation, the sooner she’d stop talking and the easier it’d get for him to not lose focus.

She passed by him again a short time later, humming his violin waltz from John’s wedding. It was soft and pleasant. _Pleasant?_ No. It was melodic. It reminded him of a steady vibrato, a lulling trill.

He wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing and why she needed to be here. _Didn’t she just walk by with the same instruments box?_

“Need a hand?”

Sherlock shook his head without looking away from the microscope. “No. I only have three slides left.”

Molly spoke up again. “Are you sure you don’t need a hand?”

“Yes,” Sherlock asserted. He backed off on the 400x magnification, before swiveling in his stool to face her.

She was much closer than before, elbows propped up on the tabletop across from him. Another Barts cooler sat beside her; this one was black with chips in the plastic that revealed a white exterior.

“What’s that for?”

She had this cheeky little grin on her face with two loose wisps of hair curled inward against her cheek. Sherlock resisted the want to tuck them back for her.

“A hand,” she replied. Her tongue darted out for a second to lick her upper lip and she visibly swallowed.

“Oh, a hand. The joke referring to the statement’s dual connotation.”

She nodded up and down slowly, lips pursed, before she conceded, “Yes, that would be the humour.” She continued to watch him gauging his expression.

“Are you still offering the hand?”

Molly slid the cooler across to him and it came to a stop near his samples. He lifted the lid up a bit and confirmed that it was indeed a human hand surrounded by ice. She hadn’t been kidding.

“Yes. There really is a hand in there. Department left it untagged so I snatched it up before one of the techs could.”

“Why?”

She went to answer, when she suddenly stopped short and leaned back from the table.

“Me,” he guessed. It sounded like a question, but his intonation said otherwise. “I’m going to go,” he finished, abruptly.

He hadn’t finished his work yet, but supposed the rest could be finished at home. He needed to leave, before either one of them went down that uncharted road. It wasn’t that he was scared of where it might lead, because -well, no. He was scared. He was terrified. He knew that once they crossed that line, his messups carried more weight —weight she wouldn’t stay around to bear.

 

**16 Coolers**

 

John scanned the room again —all 16 coolers scattered around Sherlock like a shrine to his ineptitude.

“So you didn’t even use any of them?” He couldn’t wrap his brain around the thought. It was a spectacle to behold.

“Well-” Sherlock began.

“Poking at that bag of brown mush on the floor is not an experiment,” John cut in.

“It’s a liver,” he clarified.

John threw his hands up in front of himself defensively. “Because that matters so much more.”

Sherlock groaned and swung himself out of the chair, very sloth like.

“Well can we at least put some of them in the fridge.” John peered around at the coolers, feeling a bit nauseous himself. It wasn’t the fact that parts of deceased people occupied so much of the flat —he was used to that. It was the ever worsening smell that accompanied them. “Or, here we go, novel concept: you can actually experiment on them like you said.”

Sherlock groaned.

“What now? You like experimenting.” John didn’t know as much chemistry as Sherlock, but the way he’d phrased it made him feel like he was talking to a child.

Sherlock chose to ignore his friend and stalked off to his room. John sat back in the chair and stuck his legs straight out in front of him, exhausted from the conversation alone.

With a light knock at the door another set of footsteps padded into the lounge.

“I can explain this Mrs. Hudson,” John began.

When he lifted his head up from the back of the chair however, it wasn’t Sherlock’s landlady, but an entirely different kind of woman in his life.

John went to readdress her when Sherlock stepped back into the room. He had that look on his face that kids gave their parents when they knew they were about to get in trouble.

“Molly. Hi,” he said dumbfounded.

“John. Sherlock,” she replied tersely.

She stepped back into the hall for a moment, before shuffling back in with two bags of Tesco ice.

“Ice, huh?” John commented.

Molly set them down in the kitchen, completely unfazed by the flat’s current state. She noticed Sherlock still stock still at the entrance to his bedroom. His navy oxford was half-untucked with a button undone on the end and his face just read _buffering_.

His visage first hinted that he might make some sly, sarcastic comment, but when his brain caught up, it stalled like a manual car, sputtering until even his jaw had gone a bit slack.

_How did she -when did she- know?_

“You need to replace the ice in these coolers before tonight,” she said, pointing around the room at the ones visible from the door.

She did one final canvass of the room, before grabbing hold of the door knob and closing it shut. “One, two, three, fo-” John started counting.

“Molly!” Sherlock called after her.

He went to swing the door open, when he realized the knob had never clicked back into place. He pushed on the wooden surface with his finger and watched as it opened without much resistance. Molly stood on the other side digging through her purse with one hand while the other hesitated on the handle. It took her a moment to realize he was standing there, but when she did, she held a finger up for him to wait.

Sherlock did as she asked and lingered in the doorway, addled. He couldn’t figure out where to look or what to say, but he didn’t have to for long. From out of her gaudy thrift store bag, Molly withdrew two colorful pieces of paper with deep creases and folds. The tickets.

“How did you - when did you?” Sherlock spluttered.

Molly giggled. “I know it’s a play and it may not be your sort of thing,” she said without true apprehensions. “But I’ve heard Constellations is just brilliant.”

“Molly-”

“There’s just two actors - both lovely - and it’s multiverse. A bit of physics for you. Not boring at all.”

“Molly.” He couldn’t really think of anything else to say besides her name on replay.

“Sherlock.”

He grabbed her hands —the glossy edges of the tickets flattened between their palms.

“Not like _this_?” she asked.

“No.” He stepped into her space, draping her hands over his shoulders before resting his own at the sides of her head. He gathered a tress of hair between his fingers and tucked it behind her ear, watching as the ends curled around the tip of his finger. “Not _like_ this. Always like this.”

He brought his face down to hers and placed a slow kiss at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes closed just before he backed away with a timid smile.

“I’ll be by your place in an hour?”

Molly opened her eyes, locking back onto his lips that were now absent from hers.

“What?”

“The show’s at 6:00. I’m guessing you want to change?”

Molly glanced down at her work clothes and tilted her head, resigned. “Yeah. I ‘spose. What do you suggest? A pair of glasses?”

Sherlock paled and his words caught in his throat. “That was just a line, Molly. I was trying to-”

Molly shook her head with a smile, holding back a chuckle. “I know.”


End file.
